


Left to Vultures Undeserving

by timehopper



Series: Clipped Wings [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 00:12:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10842408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timehopper/pseuds/timehopper
Summary: Pain tears through him but ebbs when he catches a glimpse of his own blood, spurting down his shoulder and trickling down to drip into the divide between synthetic and organic. It’s hot and wet and real, not shaped by human hands and forced into him, and his heart beats faster and faster and then suddenly he sees red again, a quick flash in his eyes glinting in the reflection of a mirror on the wall.The line between justice and vengeance blurs in streaks of red the first time he is let loose on the field.





	Left to Vultures Undeserving

**Author's Note:**

> More angry Blackwatch Genji! Everyone's favourite (or maybe just mine).
> 
> Sort of a spiritual successor/prequel to [Pity the Bird with Broken Wings](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10552942).

The first time is like the last time.  
  
The first time bone and flesh and steel and wires are let loose, the first time he is given free rein to do as he pleases, he sees red. Red like the scars that split the skin of his arm, his chest, the red that flashes in his eyes as he scans the area for heat, for more red, body heat and blood (the blood that soaked his teeth and stained his brother’s clothes and that flicked from the blade to splash across his eyes as he laid there dying and crying without the voice to scream). They are human and they are not, like him; they are targets, meaningless, just something in the way of someone else’s goal and tools in another’s plan.  
  
He doesn’t think about who they are or where they’re from or if they have thoughts or feelings. Genji wishes he could forget those things of himself sometimes. Wishes he could forget all the time, wishes he could become the soulless mindless weapon they want him to be. His life doesn’t matter. It never did. Not to Overwatch not to Blackwatch not to his family not to Hanzo --  
  
He is a tool, and so are his targets.  
  
His fingers twitch and he can feel sparks fly beneath his armor, phantom pain where he no longer has limbs and real pain where flesh meets metal. He shifts where he stands, agitated and eager and desperate to move, to come out of hiding and –  
  
“Now.”  
  
Reyes’ voice is all the urging he needs before Genji is springing from his perch, descending on the poor unfortunate soul (not so unfortunate as Genji himself; this man will be treated to a swift death) guarding the door. The shuriken sinks between the man’s eyes, Genji steps over the body, rifles through gore-stained clothing to dig in a pocket and pull out a keycard, almost sticky. He enters the next room to end the lives of two more guards, each with a single flick of the wrist and the _thunk_ of metal sticking in flesh and bone, a sound that makes his pupils dilate as he savors the slow-motion fall of the bodies as they crumple to the ground.  
  
His breathing picks up, vibrating through him, the _whirr_ and _hisssss_ of the mechanically-aided inhale and exhale reverberating in his ears. His throat buzzes with every shallow breath; his blood pumps faster and faster through his veins and warms him. The scent of blood and death starts to rise in the air and Genji finds himself feverish and wanting.  
  
It is too much. It is not enough.  
  
He moves on. Voices buzz in his ear and he doesn’t hear the words, so focused is he on this mission, on the blood on his hands and feet and on not looking back at the tracks he’s left, not looking at the inhuman toeprints where the smooth imprint of a shoe or a boot would normally be, like the others would be leaving -- or not leaving; it was their job to be covert, but why bother with stealth when no survivors would be left to say they had seen some hideous fusion of wire and veins?  
  
The stealth he had foregone comes back to bite him as Genji walks into a room full of men and women armed to the teeth, all surrounding one central figure. The target. He knows the others know where he is, that he’s found what they’re all looking for, so he makes no move to contact them, just narrows his eyes and draws his _wakizashi_ , taking up stance and beckoning the crowd toward their own deaths.  
  
They open fire. He sends it back, flicking bullets back to the hands they were shot from.  
  
One by one, the bodies drop, struck by their own bullets or cut down to their knees or throats slit in flashes of green and red and white and silver. He loses count of how many there are and how many are left; loses track of whether or not they even have faces or voices; loses himself in the feel of metal slicing through muscle and cartilage. For a moment he is somewhere else, fighting not for peace but for pride, to save his life, to take another --  
  
Something pierces shoulder and he stumbles over the body of – of something, he isn’t sure what anymore – and turns around, faster than lighting, swifter than the blade he holds in his hand.  Pain tears through him but ebbs when he catches a glimpse of his own blood, spurting down his shoulder and trickling down to drip into the divide between synthetic and organic. It’s hot and wet and _real_ , not shaped by human hands and forced into him, and his heart beats faster and faster and then suddenly he sees red again, a quick flash in his eyes glinting in the reflection of a mirror on the wall. The man with the gun backs up a step, cowering, and Genji grins ferally beneath his mask and steps forward slowly, savouring this, relishing in the man’s fear. He is the one with power now. He is free, unchained, here in this moment with nobody watching him or holding him back or trying to stop him from spreading his wings and soaring away from anything and everything others want for him, from him.  
  
The blood splashes as he steps in it, unfelt between his metal toes but amplified in the deafening silence of the room. The man before him is shaking, but still he holds the gun, pointed right at Genji’s face.  
  
Genji laughs, hoarse and raw and beastly. For the first time in ages, he feels _alive_ again. Alive with hate, with anger, with fury and want and _need_ to make the man who drew his blood to scream and suffer and choke on his own tears and saliva as he watches his killer flick his blade and turn to walk away, cold and triumphant and _hated for his betrayal for leaving him to die_ –  
  
Another gunshot and this time Genji barely needs to flick his wrist to send it flying away from him. “You think that can kill me?” he hisses, and the echo in his voice only serves to feed his fury, engulf him in it. “I have been torn limb from limb and survived. I was broken and then rebuilt. Death cannot touch me; what makes you think you can?”  
  
The gun clatters to the floor as the blade presses to the man’s throat, and all bravado leaves him. The man whimpers, pathetic, hands scrambling against the wall he is pinned to. He trembles in Genji’s grasp and Genji very nearly laughs. Instead he grits his teeth and presses the edge of his blade down on the man’s pale, quivering neck, watching first beads then streams of red slide down the length of the _wakizashi_ and stain the uniform of the guard that dared to shoot him. It is not enough. It never will be. “You think you can kill me? My own brother could not do it!”  
  
He pulls, slitting the man’s throat. Still not enough. He has not suffered. He has not paid for what he did, for hurting him, for daring to think he could take his life, for trying to kill him for _betraying me for taking everything away from me for killing me –_

The body goes limp and Genji wrenches the helmet off it, throws it to the ground and cracks it with the force of the impact. His fist clenches in the dead man’s hair and pulls him forward, then slams him against the wall. There’s a satisfying _crack_ from the impact (the wall or the skull Genji isn’t sure but he does it again and again and every sound it makes fills him with a new wave of something raw and dark and desperate) and he cries out in triumph in anger in something almost like ecstasy and throws the body to the ground. He follows it, kneeling above it and pulling his false arm back to slam his fist into any part of the face he can reach. The real target is long forgotten as he sinks metal knuckles and human nails into the skin of the dead man’s face. Genji thinks he might be screaming; his throat burns but he hears no sound save for the pounding of his heart and _thunk crack squelch._ The face is beaten beyond recognition, mutilated and disfigured _like me like I was supposed to be like I still am –_  
  
He stops only when something he can’t see wrenches him bodily from the corpse, and he snarls, writhing against the firm hold and lunging for the body again. He isn’t done the man hasn’t suffered enough _Hanzo hasn’t suffered enough –_  
  
“ _Shimada_!”  
  
The name makes him whirl around, raising his _wakizashi_ like a knife and lowering it like a flash of lightning until his wrist _screams_ in pain and he drops it, crying out. But he doesn’t stop, he lunges for Reyes, wanting to tear him limb from limb just as his own brother did to him. It’s almost laughable how easily Reyes forces him back, sidestepping his rage-clumsy dive and spinning around to hit him in the back of the neck. Reyes cuts _something_ off, and for a moment Genji’s vision falters and he can no longer feel any of his cybernetic limbs. He falls to the floor, face-first, in a puddle of red and for a moment he’s back in Hanamura, helpless any dying and crying out in pain. Reyes kneels before him and nudges him with the barrel of a shotgun. Genji ignores it and uses the arm he can still feel to drag himself back to the body, intent on mangling it further. It’s all he can see.  
  
A loud, exaggerated sigh and a boot connects with Genji’s shoulder, right where the bullet grazed him. Genji cries out in pain and drops. Reyes kicks Genji in the back and holds him in place with his foot. Nothing can move. Not his real arm, not his fake one, not his fake legs, not his fingers or toes or anything. “What did you do?” he demands, voice raw and rasping.  
  
“Failsafe.” Genji’s eyes go wide, furious, and he makes a pitiful lurch in an attempt to wrest himself from beneath Reyes’ foot. A failsafe. An emergency shut-down. Some sick, twisted part of his mind laments it wasn’t a self-destruct button. But that would just be too easy.  
  
“You let the target get away.” The fury in Reyes is hidden well by his cool tone of voice, but Genji knows better. Knows better than anyone the kind of rage that lurks beneath the surface of men that wear calm, collected masks. Reyes’ tranquility is as real as Genji’s, as real as Hanzo’s. Right now, Genji isn’t sure whose death he wants more.  
  
The foot comes off him and Reyes nudges Genji’s side with the toe of his boot, pushing the cyborg on to his side. “Your systems will come back online in five. If you aren’t out of here in ten, I’m dragging you back myself. Online or not.”

He walks away and leaves Genji alone to stew in his own anger and humiliation and shame. Yet as Genji lays there, blood coating his face and what’s left of his body, he smiles.  
  
At least this time, it is not his own.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this and are interested in seeing more or even just having a chat, feel free to contact and/or follow me on twitter [@tim3hopp3r](https://twitter.com/tim3hopp3r), my [personal tumblr](http://therealhousewivesofhyrule.tumblr.com/), or if you're just interested in my Overwatch stuff then at my [Overwatch sideblog](http://naptimefornaughtyrobots.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I also have a [writing blog](https://intim3ate.tumblr.com) where I post progress, WIPs, and take requests. Please check that out if you'd like to see more!
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and supporting me. ♥


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